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The purpose of this paper is to study lightweight security scheme for Internet of Things (IoT) applications using Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). Resource-constrained characteristics of IoT systems have ushered in compelling requirements for lightweight application protocol and security suites. CoAP has already been established as the candidate protocol for IoT systems. However, low overhead security scheme for CoAP is still an open problem. Existing security solutions like Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) is not suitable, particularly due to its expensive handshaking, public key infrastructure (PKI)-based authentication and lengthy ciphersuite agreement process.

This paper proposes a lightweight security scheme in CoAP using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128 symmetric key algorithm. The paper presents an object security (payload embedded)-based robust authentication mechanism with integrated key management. The paper introduces few unique modifications to CoAP header to optimize security operation and minimize communication cost.

It is resilient to number of security attacks like replay attack, meet-in-the-middle attack and secure under chosen plaintext attack. This scheme is generic in nature, applicable for gamut of IoT applications. The paper proves efficacy of our proposed scheme for vehicle tracking application in emulated laboratory setup. Specifically, it compares with DTLS-enabled CoAP to establish the lightweight feature of our proposed solution.

This paper mainly focuses on implementing in-vehicle tracking systems as an IoT application and used CoAP as the application protocol.

Such a lightweight security scheme would provide immense benefit in IoT systems so that resource constraint-sensing devices and nodes can be made secure. This would impact IoT eco systems to a large extent.

Such kind of security suite that provides both robustness and lightweight feature is hitherto not known to the authors, particularly in CoAP for IoT applications.

This paper aims to examine barriers to finance experienced by female owner/managers of marginal farms in the Punjab region of India.

The article is based on the preliminary results of a survey conducted with 48 marginal farmers and 15 bank managers in Punjab, India.

Emergent results show that the relationship of female owner/mangers with their banks was affected by gender prejudices inherent in the male dominated banking sector in India. Loan rejection rates for female owner/managers were significantly greater than those of their male counterparts. The incidence of bank managers requiring collateral/referral letters was considerably higher for female owner/managers than for equivalent male applicants.

The research sample explored in this study is small and drawn exclusively from the Punjab region of India and it might not be representative of the wider population of farmers in India.

To enhance the competitiveness of the agricultural sector in India, policy makers and associated government agencies should develop support initiatives aimed specifically at marginal farmers in general and female owner/managers in particular.

Even though the research sample is small the results of the study could have implications for policy makers, bank managers and regional development agencies in India as well as other developing countries.

The results of this research contribute to better awareness and understanding of barriers to finance experienced by female owner/managers of marginal farms in Punjab, India.

The purpose of this paper is to see whether Government of India is successful to make credit accessible to the poor; to examine the role of competition in microfinance sector in ensuring credit to the ultra poor borrowers; to see the role of subsidy in microfinance movement.

The paper is based on secondary data. This paper examines, in an analytical framework with a variety of assumptions, the role of microfinance institutes (MFIs) in bringing capital to the ultra poor.

In an attempt to make credit accessible to the poor, Government of India took several measures, but did not succeed to a significant extent. This paper has shown that the microcredit has become accessible to the “working poor,” but not to the ultra poor. Initially the model shows that in the absence of competition MFI and moneylender are equally exploitative to the ultra poor borrowers. The model further shows that in the presence or absence of competition in the credit market, credit may be accessible to the ultra poor borrowers under certain conditions. Excessive subsidies might drive out the poor borrowers from the microfinance sector.

For the poor clients served by the microfinance institution, the argument goes, the access not the cost (interest rate) that matters (Robinson, 2001). Here the implicit assumption is that the interest rate elasticity of demand for micro credit is close to zero (Emran et al., 2006). In an interesting paper Deheja et al. (2005) has shown that the interest rate elasticity of loan in the microfinance system is significantly negative. The author is of the opinion that this is the cost of credit as well as inability to pay a minimum price of credit, which denies the access to credit.

This paper aims to investigate the economic, political or sociocultural determinants of corruption in Tunisia.

To better understand the main determinants of corruption in Tunisia. This study uses The Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) model, which allows us to include a large number of explanatory variables and for a shorter period.

The results show that economic freedom is the most important variable of corruption in Tunisia. In second place comes the subsidies granted by the government, which is one of the best shelters of corruption in Tunisia through their use for purposes different from those already allocated to them. Third, this paper finds the high unemployment rate, which, in turn, is getting worse even nowadays. The other three factors considered as causal but of lesser importance are public expenditures, the human development index (HDI) and education. Education, the HDI and the unemployment rate are all socio-economic factors that promote corruption.

The realization of this study will lead to triple net contributions. The first is to introduce explicitly and simultaneously political, social and economic determinants of corruption in developing countries. Second, unlike previous studies based on the simple and generalized regression model, the present research uses another novel and highly developed estimation method. More precisely, this study uses the BMA model, on the set of annual data for a period of 1998–2018. The third contribution of this research resides in the choice of the sample.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of non‐violent protest (satyagraha) in a multinational automobile plant in India that has suffered from considerable employee relations problems.

The paper employs a case study of a Japanese‐owned company using data obtained from 30 personal interviews and from internet media sources.

It is found that workers initially pursued their protests through satyagraha‐style methods before taking on a more violent posture when company management refused to accept any notion of jointly seeking a new harmony. The reasons for these developments are explored.

The paper has implications for the manner in which scholars and practitioners view the respective roles, significance, and management of satyagraha and non‐satyagraha protest in Indian companies.

The importance of satyagraha in Indian employee relations is under‐researched in comparison with other factors, and is especially significant for culturally‐unaware multinational companies in successfully understanding and managing protest in the workplace context.

From a Latin American decolonial and transdisciplinary perspective, this article expands the increasingly relevant conversation about disaster ethics, not only in depth and scope but also both interdisciplinarily and interculturally. By reviewing key points of development ethics that are closely related but underexplored, it makes the case for focusing on disaster recovery as a relevant distributive phase for improving future prevention and mitigation, while remedying long-standing injustices.

To do so, against the backdrop of recently emerging postcolonial, decolonial and structural approaches to disaster and vulnerability studies, the article presents a theoretical conversation between decolonial studies, development ethics, intercultural practice and philosophy, and disaster ethics beyond utilitarian approaches.

So far, development and disaster ethics remain worlds apart, despite their relevant convergence around the key notion of “recovery” and its underlying normative determination. This article identifies that prevailing utilitarian ethics in emergency response, in addition to their problematic universalization, have prevented further engagement with deontological and process-based principles, including a nuanced distributive sensitivity. As a result of such cross-fertilization, methodological individualism in an intercultural encounter is suggested, as well as continued engagement with pluriversal deliberation about key ethical values and notions regarding disaster risk and response.

Calling for distributive bottom-up engagement beyond professional and academic boundaries, this article presents a new direction for decolonising disaster ethics, so far unexplored, seeking to bridge the value gap between development and disaster efforts, planning and prevention.

This paper aims to explore the relationships between self-construals, religious identification, and conflict styles in India.

Data were gathered in India (n=1,108) among Hindus (n=744) and Muslims (n=364) in various organizations throughout India. Conflict styles were measured using Oetzel's conflict style measure. Self-construal was measured using Singelis' self-construal measure. Pearson correlations and multiple regressions were conducted.

Correlation analysis showed significant negative correlation between the independent and interdependent self-construal. Multiple hierarchical regression modeling demonstrated significant interactions between religious identification, self-construal, and conflict style. Hindus are more likely to dominate in conflict situations, while Muslims are more likely to avoid conflict and prefer more group-oriented conflict styles.

Self-report measure is a possible limitation and the sample is religiously homogeneous.

The results of this study could assist community organizers and others who work in conflict mediation resolve conflict among religious groups.

Few studies have examined conflict styles in India and this study employs a macro and micro-level approach to the study of conflict.